Despite being the laughing stock of all crypto communities this cycle, $ETH is still the second biggest crypto by capitalization by quite a big margin ​ $66B more than $USDT (a stablecoin), $80B from $XRP and $130B from $BNB It shouldn't be a surprise that the biggest DeFi protocol by TVL is @LidoFinance: a Liquid Staking protocol designed to earn from your Ether bag without locking it ​ Narratives come and go, changing the scope and destination of liquidity in crypto, but Lido is a solid one ​ $16B out of the total $100B of all DeFi (source: @DefiLlama) and the $LDO token has $750M in market cap ​ 💧 The thesis for Lido is simple: earn $ETH's staking rewards without locking it ​ As long as $ETH retains its value as a DeFi asset, Lido will retain its title as the headquarters of DeFi's liquidity ​ Pioneering Liquid Staked Derivatives was what made $LDO big, and you can currently earn around 2.8% in APY by staking your $ETH here $stETH is extremely liquid, and you've probably never seen FUD regarding its stability, peg, and redeemability ​ You can comfortably swap in and out of it on any swap and most EVM chains ​ And you can use $stETH (or $wstETH) in most DeFi protocols as well: ​ 🔹Use it as collateral on lending and borrowing platforms 🔹Looping strategies to leverage the staking yield 🔹Infinite shenanigans on @pendle_fi to bet on the APR volatility 🔹Provide liquidity to LP pairs on most DEXs ​ Lido has massive backing and more than 700 operators stake $ETH there to validate the network, and the protocol keeps evolving as well ↓ 💧 The v2 of Lido expanded to more chains, like @0xPolygon and introduced institutional-grade solutions for bigger market participants ​ 💧The v3 Testnet just went live with the goal of bringing tailored staking solutions to the market ​ Lido stVaults are new modular primitives, designed to make highly customized staking solutions ​ Keep in mind that Lido worked hard to be institutional-grade, and you wouldn't expect anything different from the biggest DeFi protocol in the world ​ But institutional players are not the only ones benefiting from this upgrade ​ 🔹Leveraged staking will make native looping and leveraging possible ​ 🔹stVaults-based DeFi protocols will become popular in no time I can already see a world of multi-layered reward system on dApps across many chains, making use of the most liquid asset and the most liquid infrastructure, combining at the bare minimum ​ ▪ $ETH staking rewards ▪ Liquidity Yield from dApps ▪ Airdrop/Yield rewards from new and existing protocols alike ▪ Partnership rewards ​ How high could a % Apr get here? ​ Lido V3 might give an extra push to a DeFi scene that is already dominating crypto ​ And I can't wait to see that